


Hot Pursuit

by Jenemi



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Closeted Character, Detective Saihara Shuichi, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phantom Thief Oma Kokichi, shuichi has anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 01:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenemi/pseuds/Jenemi
Summary: Detective Saihara has spent months obsessing over the phantom thief case, but with only one piece of evidence (the thief's signature calling card), he hasn't gotten far. The yakuza, on the other hand, are displeased to see the thief infringing on their territory. When tension between the two boils over, Shuichi finds himself working together with his greatest rival to stop the yakuza's reign of terror.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Amami Rantaro, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Hot Pursuit

“Cheers!”

The men clinked their glasses together. Shuichi watched them toss their drinks back at a pace that made him woozy as he struggled to keep up. Kaede, on the other hand, had the art of chugging mastered after years of playing flip cup in college. She proudly set her empty glass down on the table, beating some of the more macho men at the table.

“Well, now we know who wears the pants,” said the coworker to his left, followed by a round of uproarious laughter. Shuichi remembered why he didn’t go to parties.

His uncle sat at the head of the table, unfazed by the loud atmosphere. Once in a while he would take a modest sip from his glass, and immediately there would be some brown-noser eagerly topping him off. Shuichi and his date chose their seats at the other end of the table, and he was starting to regret it.

“So, Nancy Drew, you catch your phantom thief yet?” the coworker across from him asked, his smugness palpable and his face blotchy red from all the drinking.

“Well, I… uh…” Shuichi stammered, searching his scrambled brain for a suitable answer. Of course, he hadn't caught the thief, but that wasn't his fault, right? None of his coworkers would fare any better trying to catch someone when the only piece of evidence was some stupid calling card. The thief could best any of them, having mastered the arts of escape, distraction, disguise, lock-picking, cable-dropping, security footage-destroying, and who knows what else. He’d probably have better luck trying to capture the wind between his fingers. But he would try, and keep trying, and there was no way some two-bit petty thief would rob him of even the chance to prove himself—

Shuichi felt a reassuring hand on his back and came back to reality. He turned to the side and saw Kaede making that concerned, sympathetic smile. It was probably supposed to mean “are you okay?” but he interpreted it more like “get your shit together”. He was making a total fool of himself and he wasn’t even drunk yet. 

He cleared his throat. “Not yet, but I’ve made some progress. I’m going to be visiting a few mystic shops in town next week. The thief leaves the same card every time, so I want to see if any customers bought multiples of that deck.”

“Not a bad start,” another coworker chimed in, rubbing his chin. “But he could always buy ‘em online. Doesn’t have to show his face or nothin’.”

“Don’t spoil the kid’s fun,” the red-faced one replied. “We’ll get our shot at it when he’s done playing detective.”

\---

By the time they finally left, the rain had picked up considerably from the light drizzle earlier in the evening. Shuichi cursed himself for not bringing his own umbrella, huddled up next to his date while they waited for their ride. He fought the urge to pace on the sidewalk. He couldn’t collect his thoughts standing still, so instead he internally repeated, you’re such an idiot, hands stuck into his pockets.

“Hey, Shuichi,” Kaede paused her idle humming to call his name. She placed her hand around the crook of his elbow. He looked over to see her still wearing the same worried smile she had for most of the evening. “Those guys… they don’t know what they’re talking about. You know that, right?”

Considering how long they had known each other, it wasn’t a surprise that she saw through him so easily. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of tells, either, and he hated that it was so obvious. His anxiety manifested in a lot of ways: shaking hands, a quivering voice, chattering teeth. His stomach would twist in knots, sometimes so severely that when he finally got back to the apartment he’d rush to the bathroom dry heaving. 

“Shuichi?”

How was he going to finally confront the thief, if he ever got the chance? He spent a lot of evenings aimlessly wandering around town, waiting for their chance encounter, hoping to somehow stumble upon the so-called phantom thief before he had his chance to strike. He doubted that the day would ever come, anyway, but he couldn’t help worrying about it. The days he spent poring over documents rarely paid off. He assumed there had to be at least a few bandits, considering the scale of the stunts the thief had pulled off. At least one of them would have to slip up, leave behind a hair, a footprint, something he could use, right?

“Shuichi!” He suddenly became aware that Kaede had grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him out of his trance. 

“Ah, sorry!”

“That’s it, mister,” she announced, with a tone of mock scolding. “I think I’m going to have to initiate Operation Shuichi’s Day Off.”

He groaned. “You don’t mean-”

“I’m forbidding you from thinking about work for the rest of the night!” She put a hand on her hip triumphantly. “We’re gonna go home, and we’re gonna watch a stupid horror movie, and you’re gonna stop whatever you’re worrying about until Monday.”

“I can do until tomorrow,” he bargained, eyes narrowing. She narrowed hers back.

“Hmmm… deal.” She put out her hand, and he agreed with a shake. Of course, she must have known that asking him to stop worrying was entirely futile. But she would help him try to forget about it for a little while, and that put him just a little bit at ease.

Shortly after, their ride had finally arrived - a little teal-colored Beetle that Shuichi struggled to fit his long legs into. Relieved to escape from the rain, the two of them hurried over. Shuichi climbed into the backseat.

“Good evening, detective,” Rantaro teased from the driver’s seat. “How was your game of espionage this evening?”

“They didn’t expect a thing,” Kaede chirped, opening the passenger door. She sat down and immediately leaned in for a kiss. “I’m starting to think I’m not a bad actress after all.”

She was right. Kaede quickly eased into her role after he had asked her to come to his uncle’s for New Year’s. It was just supposed to be a short term thing, to get his family off his back about not having a girlfriend. They knew he was shy, but it was starting to get suspicious that after high school he still wasn’t spending time in the company of women. They would have to be convinced that there wasn’t something fishy going on. And so Kaede became Shuichi’s “girlfriend”, at least for the holidays. 

The problem was that they adored her. Soon they would start to complain if she wasn’t present for some family holiday, and it spiraled and spiraled, and now his uncle had insisted that he bring Kaede to come celebrate with him and his coworkers. It wasn’t all bad - she really was close with him, and his anxiety didn’t act up nearly as much when she was around. If she hadn’t come tonight, he probably would have spent the evening in and out of the bathroom stall trying to control his breathing. But with Rantaro in the picture now, his tower of lies grew closer and closer to toppling over.

“I did invoke the nuclear option,” Kaede mentioned with a smile, and Rantaro immediately perked up. He looked at Shuichi through the rearview mirror.

“So we get to spend some time together tonight, huh Shuichi?” He looked at him through the rearview mirror. “I just rented a big stack of movies earlier I’m excited to watch. I’ll let you take your pick as the man of honor.”

“Wait,” Shuichi said. “Is there some kind of plan I should know about?”

Rantaro and Kaede looked at each other.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in your room lately, so I thought maybe tonight we would be able to hang out,” Kaede answered.

“And, being as it is a Friday night,” Rantaro added. “we may or may not have picked up some movies, a couple of board games, and a twelve-pack of hard cider.”

\---

Shuichi woke up the next morning on the couch, instead of his bed. He was covered with a throw blanket, which he pulled back to find that was still dressed in his work clothes from the previous day, albeit with his belt off and shirt unbuttoned. When he sat up, he felt a rush of blood and suddenly his head was throbbing, punishing him for the night before. He groaned and pushed his hand to his forehead before looking around.

The living room had already been tidied, and on the coffee table someone had already left him two little pills and a glass of water. There wasn’t a note, so he assumed it was Rantaro, as Kaede would usually leave behind some encouraging scribbles on a sticky note. Besides that, there wasn’t any sign that either of his roommates were still in the apartment. He dutifully took the pills then grabbed the remote, hoping to find some dumb TV show to spend the morning watching as he waited for the headache to pass. He flicked it on.

“-Tower in Roppongi Hills, the city was stunned this morning by the disappearance of the famous Maman sculpture. The thirty-foot-tall sculpture was stolen sometime around 3 A.M. this morning, and its place the thief left a calling card. Police have informed the public that they believe this to be the work of a daring serial burglar who has been referred to as the ‘Phantom Thief’, due to the string of similarly unusual crimes committed in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Police are currently reviewing security-”

Before the report was finished, Shuichi was already out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! be on the lookout for the next chapter in which we meet our phantom thief. ;^)


End file.
